Tennis Lessons, Life Lessons, Part 2

I've Got Your Back: Coaching Top Performers from Center Court to the Corner Office
by Brad Gilbert, James Kaplan

(Page 3 of 4)

Chiv had been at Foothill his entire career, since the school opened its doors in the mid-sixties. He could have gone to many other schools, because he was a great coach, but he ended up just loving Foothill and creating a great tennis program there. His love for his job and the school were more important to him than personal prestige. That attitude was infectious. Some people would show up and act like, "Shit, I'm at a junior college." The first day I got there and met Chiv, I knew I was in the right place.

Positiveness was something that had been missing from my tennis career up to that point. I was tough, I was determined - but I was negative. Junior tennis had felt like a grind to me. I loved the game, but I hated the dog eat dog.

Chiv's spirit was contagious, and I caught it. I wanted to work hard and do well; I wanted to please him. I had always lived for competition, but now I began to love it.

The next lesson took a little longer. A positive fighting spirit was all well and good, but I needed a backhand to go with it. Chiv had a friend with a private court, and on weekends he and I would go over there with a basket of balls, and he'd feed me five hundred backhands. The goal was to try and turn my defensive chip into an offensive topspin shot without changing my funky continental grip. It ain't easy - try it sometime.

But after two months, I figured it out: Suddenly I could hit over my backhand with confidence. And miraculously, something else happened at the same time. I grew. Five inches and five pounds in eight weeks. All at once, I was a six-foot-one-inch, 125-pound beanpole.

The weight would come, but now that I had the height - and the stroke - I started to turn the tables on the competition. Suddenly, guys who had been regularly cleaning my clock, 6-2 and 6-1, were falling to me by the same scores. By the end of my freshman year I had gone from being a semi-crappy former junior to a player who was ready, I thought, to play on the pro tour. Except for one thing: I lost in the finals of the California state championships. "I think you need to show me you can at least be number 1 in California," Chiv said, "before you go on to the next level."

He was right, as usual. I corrected that situation the following year. Not only did I win the state championships, I didn't lose a single varsity match as a sophomore at Foothill. I also made the Junior Davis Cup team, the first junior-college player ever to do so. But Chiv had more to teach me. Even though I was the clear-cut number 1 on the Foothill team, head and shoulders above everybody, he made me defend my spot in challenge matches. He didn't want me getting above myself or complacent; he also didn't want anyone else on the team to feel that the coach was playing favorites. If I was going to be a star, I had to show it through my deeds, not my attitude.

I was hot to drop out after sophomore year and start playing the pro tour. Chiv had a different idea. "You should go win the NCAA Championships," he told me. "It's just a waste of time," I told him. Chiv gave me a look. "You only have one shot in your life at trying to win the NCAA," he said. "And if you win, it could give you a big boost when you go out on the tour" - Nike and Adidas were giving out some pretty big contracts in those days to NCAA winners.

I saw his point.

In January of 1982, I transferred to Pepperdine University in Malibu in order to be eligible for the NCAA Championships. (My relationship with Chiv would have another chapter, even though I didn't know it at the time.) I stayed at Pepperdine exactly one semester, playing under the one-of-a-kind Allen Fox, a great tennis mind and a quirky character, who taught me a bit more about staying positive. I remember one time I was playing like crap in a match, down 5-2 in the third set. It had turned into the kind of match I call a trunk slammer: When you're all ready to throw your sticks in your gear bag, throw the bag in the trunk of your car, and get the hell out of there. Foxy came out onto the court, walking his goofy little duckwalk, looked at me, grinned, and said, "You got him right where you want him." I said, "Coach, what are you talking about? I'm down 5-2 in the third." "No problem," Foxy said. "He's so nervous about winning, you can take it from him, right here." It changed my whole mind-set about the match. Foxy always used to say, "You're never going to get three games back at once. Get one game back. Start with one game - then maybe you'll get two."

Often as not, it worked out just that way.

The NCAAs, though, were a different story. I had a great run in the tournament, then in the final I came up against Mike Leach, a huge-serving lefty from the University of Michigan. And I was guilty of two things: The first was arrogance. I simply assumed I was going to win that tournament. I had geared my entire game for the last half-year toward this moment; I had done everything right. In my mind, the title was mine already. The check was in the mail.

Mike Leach had a different plan.

The final score was 7-5, 6-3. In retrospect, I did several things wrong, including playing not to lose (always a big mistake) and not digging down when things got tight. I think maybe I got steamrolled mentally because I expected it to come a little easier. And because I was surprised at his game.

My worst mistake was not having the foggiest idea, before I walked out onto that court, what kind of tennis player Mike Leach was. I've heard it said that John McEnroe never scouted an opponent. Well, I've said it before and I'll say it again: Mac's a tennis genius. And it's nice to be a genius, but those of us who aren't have to work extra hard. For two weeks after that NCAA final, I walked around like I'd been kicked in the groin. Then I straightened up and came to my senses. Throughout my two years at Foothill and my short time at Pepperdine, I'd been pretty careful about at least watching my opponents warm up. This time, I hadn't been careful at all. Now I was on my way to the pros (with a small endorsement contract from Nike), where the competition would be much, much tougher. And I decided I was going to pay very, very close attention.

The tennis immortal Bill Tilden said, "Never change a winning game; always change a losing game." The great coach Tom Chivington said something just as important, in my opinion: "When do you change a losing game? When you have a better plan."

My first summer as a touring tennis pro, the summer of 1982, was rough. I was just one of hundreds of hungry young wannabes: Every one of us could play, every one of us desperately wanted a spot on the main tour. The only way to get there was to accumulate ATP points, and the only way to get those points was to play satellite tournaments and qualifiers. It was not glamour time. It was plane rides and bus rides, cheap motels (with three guys in a room) and fast food. It was bad practice courts or no practice courts. A lot of guys weren't up for the grind. They got homesick, they got injured, they dropped out.

But I was happy to be there. This was what I wanted to do with my life; I'd never imagined anything else. Even when it was 100 degrees and 200 percent humidity in Monroe, Louisiana, or Little Rock, Arkansas, or Sioux City, Iowa, I was thrilled to be out there battling, playing for a few dollars and a couple of points. I didn't win any of the tournaments on that satellite, but I came in fourth overall, which was good enough to get me into my first event on the main tour, the Washington Star International in Washington, D.C. I won my first round, a rough three- setter against Derek Tarr of South Africa, and lost in the second, to a Czech named Jiri Granat. I had picked up a few points and was now 190th in the world.

Copyright © 2005 Brad Gilbert, James Kaplan. All rights reserved. This excerpt, or any parts thereof, may not be reproduced without permission.

About the Author

Brad Gilbert is the author of the tennis classic Winning Ugly, which has sold more than 125,000 copies. Before he became a coach, he played professional tennis from 1982 to 1995, winning twenty pro titles.

James Kaplan is the co-author, with John McEnroe, of the #1 New York Times bestseller You Cannot Be Serious.